The number of major retail investors in the local stock market in the second quarter was the highest in the past five quarters as surging share prices attracted more big investors, data compiled by the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) showed on Monday.
A total of 2,427 “big players” participated in the main board in the April-to-June quarter, up from 1,736 in the previous quarter and the most since the 2,799 major investors in the first quarter of last year, the exchange’s data showed.
A “big player” is defined as an investor who trades at least NT$500 million (US$16.13 million) in shares on the TWSE in a single quarter.
Photo: I-Hwa Cheng, Bloomberg
Last quarter’s number increased by 39.8 percent from the previous quarter as more investors were drawn into local equities ranging from semiconductors to cloud computing and smart manufacturing when the TAIEX rallied on artificial intelligence hype from May to last month.
In the second quarter, the number of “mid-sized players” — or retail investors with quarterly turnover of between NT$100 million and NT$500 million — increased by 4,935 to 20,546, also the highest since the first quarter of last year, when it reached 21,926, TWSE data showed.
Meanwhile, the number of retail investors with quarterly trading of less than NT$100 million totaled 4.16 million last quarter, representing a sequential increase of 308,195 and the highest since the second quarter of last year, when it totaled 4.17 million, the data showed.
Such figures are seen as an important indicator of investor confidence in Taiwanese equities, as total market turnover on the main board jumped to NT$16 trillion in the second quarter, up 33.33 percent from NT$12 trillion in the first quarter, the exchange said.
Average daily turnover was NT$269.73 billion in the second quarter, increasing by 23.43 percent from an average of NT$218.53 billion three months earlier, TWSE data showed.
Retail investors accounted for 58.2 percent of the market’s turnover in the second quarter, up from 57.71 percent in the first quarter, while foreign institutional investors made up 30.93 percent, down from 31.53 percent. Local institutional investors represented the remaining 10.87 percent, up from 10.76 percent, the TWSE said.
The TAIEX yesterday closed down 106.38 points, or 0.61 percent, at 17,227.91. The index has risen 21.86 percent since the beginning of the year.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
Taiwanese artificial intelligence (AI) server makers are expected to make major investments in Texas in May after US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office and amid his rising tariff threats, Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (TEEMA, 台灣電子電機公會) chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said yesterday. The association led a delegation of seven AI server manufacturers to Washington, as well as the US states of California, Texas and New Mexico, to discuss land and tax issues, as Taiwanese firms speed up their production plans in the US with many of them seeing Texas as their top option for investment, Lee said. The
RSS